Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore. Sounds like a cozy bookstore mystery, right? Don’t be deceived, it is not a cozy bookstore mystery. It is creepy psychological thriller – ish. Although not super creepy.. because I typically don’t like super creepy / scary books. There was a lot of build up and I liked the way it tied together in the end but it seemed like a whole lot of pages in order to get to the conclusion. And then the conclusion was like oh ok, that makes sense. But not like WHOAH I wasn’t expecting that. So it was worth the read but not something I’ll be running around telling everyone about.

“When a bookshop patron commits suicide, it’s his favorite store clerk who must unravel the puzzle he left behind in this fiendishly clever debut novel from an award-winning short story writer... As Lydia untangles the mystery of Joey’s suicide, she unearths a long buried memory from her own violent childhood. Details from that one bloody night begin to circle back. Her distant father returns to the fold, along with an obsessive local cop, and the Hammerman, a murderer who came into Lydia’s life long ago and, as she soon discovers, never completely left.”

Krysten Ritter is an actress. Have you seen Jessica Jones? She is Jessica Jones. Now, I hate it when actors write books. I said this when I read The Wishing Spell by Chris Colfer, from Glee. Actually, this is what I said verbatim.

“Anyway, I HATE books that are written by actors or singers or people who aren’t authors. Unless they’re biographies and then I guess it’s okay because they’re their own life expert. But anything else I detest. Like Madonna and her Roses series or whatever? What is that about. Go sing a song. That’s your job. No one asked you to start writing books. Authors don’t wake up one day and say, “I think I’m going to make an album today” or “I think I’m going to be an actress now.” What if I woke up one day and decided I was going to try my hand at being a brain surgeon? So annoying. ANYWAY, now I can’t say that anymore because this book was pretty good. Although I could said it generally. GENERALLY, I detest books written by actresses or singers etc.”

I should maybe revisit my hatred of authors writing books because Bonfire was a good book y’all. Very suspenseful. Keeps you guessing until the very end. I had no idea what was going on (in a good way) even up to 90% completed. I can’t even tell you what it’s about. So I’ll give you the Goodreads summary.

With tantalizing twists, slow-burning suspense, and a remote, rural town of just five claustrophobic miles, Bonfire is a dark exploration of the question: can you ever outrun your past?

It would seem I have a problem with popular books. I avoid them. I avoided Homegoing and Underground Railroad and many others I’m sure. Why do I do that? Anyway, I kept avoiding this one not because it was popular but because everyone said it was sad. I don’t do sad for the point of sad. If a book is just there to make you cry it is not for me. If it has sad parts that’s a different thing.

I got A Man Called Ove on audio because it was there and I needed something. It was read by an actor, George Newbern. I know him as the fiancé/husband in Father of the Bride (the best movie ever) but apparently he reads audiobooks now. Anyway, Ove is hilarious. I mean seriously funny. He’s a cantankerous old man who’s wife died and now he’s lost. He gets new neighbors who insert themselves into his life and he doesn’t know what to do with them. Were there sad parts? Yes. But I wouldn’t say it is an all around sad book. It has more funny parts than sad. It was a happy summer read. I’m going to watch the movie tonight.

“This is Claude. He’s five years old, the youngest of five brothers, and loves peanut butter sandwiches. He also loves wearing a dress, and dreams of being a princess. When he grows up, Claude says, he wants to be a girl (side note : as far as I can remember he actually never says “I want to be a girl”).

Rosie and Penn want Claude to be whoever Claude wants to be. They’re just not sure they’re ready to share that with the world. Soon the entire family is keeping Claude’s secret. Until one day it explodes.”

In the throes of this book, I texted everyone I know who has even a minor involvement with kids. Not just because of Poppy’s story, because everyone will not be a parent to a Poppy, but because of all the other characters as well. So we can all see how people should respond and act to people in general, not just trans people. I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 because I thought the trip to Thailand was a cop out. There are regular families who need a real outcome and picking up to fly across the globe where trans people are accepted is not one of them.

This would make an amazing book club book and encourages so much discussion. Side note, I did not like the audio book reader.

I’ve never read a Julia Glass book. I know she’s very popular and her characters from Three Junes (a National Book Award winner in 2002) continue in some of her other books. A House Among the Trees does not contain any of those characters. It’s a stand alone.

“When the revered children’s author Mort Lear dies accidentally at the Connecticut home he shares with Tomasina Daulair, his trusted assistant, she is stunned to be left the house and all its contents, as well as being named his literary executor. Though not quite his daughter or his wife, Tommy was nearly everything to the increasingly reclusive Lear, whom she knew for over forty years since meeting him as a child in a city playground where Lear was making sketches for Colorquake, a book that would become an instant classic.”

I don’t know why I picked this up or for that matter why I kept going. I can’t say it was good or bad, it was just a book. Nothing super shocking. Just a slow rolling book with multiple POVs. Easily skipped.

This was an amazing book. I avoided it for a long time because of all the hype. But the hype is deserving and it should have won the Pulitzer. In my humble opinion. I also love that Yaa Gyasi went to the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. Iowa pride. It was also one of the books that was mailed around in my traveling book club for the months of Sept-Oct.

Each chapter follows a different character, all of them stemming from two women – half sisters. In this way it’s almost like a connective short story collection. I loved all the characters and their lives. So much so that more books could be written about the timeline of the characters lives that we don’t see. And I would read those books. No question.